“Mr Brice, away the cutter, Mr Saxton in charge,” he threw at the officer-of-the-watch.
“We’re going back, Mr Calloway. Get hold of Stirk, ask him for four men, arm them and meet me in ten minutes.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Kydd went down to his cabin to find his secretary.
“We’re missing four men ashore, Dillon. I’ve no right to ask it, but it would be obliging of you to come with us when we look for them, to ask the villagers questions.”
“Sir Thomas, of course I’d be glad to—but the Turkish lingo is like no other. It originates in the great steppe lands and—”
“I’m sure you’ll do your best. Now, I can’t be certain we won’t face a mort of pother. Are you up for it at all?”
“Certainly, sir.” The young man’s eyes shone at the talk of danger.
A grim-faced Stirk and the men were waiting, fingering cutlasses and with a brace of pistols each in their belts. “Shaky dos, sir, L’Aurores gone straggling in among all them Turks.”
Dillon saw the weapons and his eyes widened. “Sir Thomas, you can’t expect me to go on the land unarmed. May I?” He pointed to the lethal grey steel of a cutlass.
“Find Mr Dillon a slasher, if you please.”
The young man was delighted, and even more so when he was also handed a baldric and scabbard to fit over his plain black secretarial clothes.
“Mr Curzon, the ship’s yours. If I’m not back in an hour or two send word to Admiral Duckworth. And no rescue parties—clear?”
“Sir.”
The boat put off and scudded in to the little jetty.
They looked around watchfully, ready for any hostile move.
There was nothing—but Kydd could feel tension in the air. One or two villagers stopped to stare, their features defensive, while others walked hurriedly away.
“Where’s the market?”
“Up the street t’ the left, sir,” Calloway said uneasily.
They strode up the steep incline in a tight group, under orders not to draw weapons unless threatened.
The houses on either side were of nameless antiquity, poor with peeling shutters. The market was on level ground, still in full swing, noisy and crowded, but when the party came into view the babble fell away.
Kydd went to the nearest merchant, an onion-seller in a grubby turban with a seamed face. “Dillon, ask him if he’s seen anything of our friends.”
The man’s beady eyes never left Kydd’s as he listened. Then he spread his hands and shrugged.
Dillon took out a notebook and wrote some words in Greek. The man glanced at them, then drew back and spat on the ground. A murmuring began in the crowd gathering behind him.
Kydd gave a wry smile. “We’ll get nothing out of them. Can’t spy any uniforms here—Calloway, where did you see them?”
He pointed up the steep street where the houses ended and the road continued up the hill.
Kydd knew it unlikely in the extreme that Poulden would lead the lads into temptation in some tavern or worse—had they gone into hiding at the sight of the uniforms?
“Stirk—give ’em a pipe.”
The gunner’s mate pulled out his boatswain’s call. The harsh shrieking of “hands to muster” echoed from building to building across the other side, stopping conversations in the square.
“Again.”
The expressions on the crowd went from astonishment to curiosity, then to suspicion. But no shame-faced L’Aurores emerged.
Kydd faced a dilemma. It could never be justified later that he, a distinguished and valuable post-captain, had gone ashore to rescue stragglers, even with the excuse that on the strength of a vague report of uniforms on the island he had gone to take a look.
But if he gave up on them now and sailed away, the Navy would then consider the men deserters. An accusing “R,” for “run,” would appear next to their name on the ship’s books and on recapture they would face a court-martial and the lash.
And if they were somewhere else? How far should he search in an increasingly hostile island? “Calloway, when you spotted your uniforms, what direction were they going?” he snapped urgently.
“Like I said, sir. From over that hill and down this side, and—”
“I see. Back to the boat then,” Kydd ordered crisply.
They stood out to sea, ostensibly returning to L’Aurore, but then altered as if to report to the flagship and carried on to mingle with the usual ship-to-ship boat traffic.
“We’re not looking any more, Sir Thomas?” Dillon asked.
“We’re not returning on board, are we?” Kydd said, with an arch expression, and nodded to Stirk. He thrust down the tiller, put the cutter about and they stretched out through the passage between Prota and the next island, but as they passed close to the southern end Kydd growled orders that saw them heading for a tiny sandy cove.
They scrambled ashore, leaving the bows on a kedge out to seaward. The boat’s crew, under Saxton, the senior master’s mate, readied the gear for hoisting in preparation for a rapid departure, if need be.
Where the diminutive beach ended to the right, a point of land jutted out. A tumble of brown rocks and scrub hid what was beyond.
Stirk was sent ahead, slipping and sliding up to the ragged crest of the point. He inched his head up—then ducked and beckoned furiously, a finger to his lips.
There were no paths and the pebble shale was loose and dusty, Kydd scurried as fast as he could to Stirk’s side. He raised his head cautiously.
Anchored offshore was an inoffensive merchantman, brig-rigged, the usual maid-of-all-work around the Mediterranean, but it was off-loading field guns on to rafts for the short trip inshore. The Turks were using the delay to secretly land weapons to mount on the summit of the island to menace the British fleet.
Every instinct urged Kydd to get back to his frigate and fall on them but there were larger considerations. If troops and guns were already ashore, destroying the supply ship would do little to lessen the threat to the fleet.
He scanned the side of the hill above and spotted a monastery of the sort so common in these parts, but there was something odd about it: the windows were narrow and vertical. Loopholes! As he gazed at it he saw a line of men coming up from the landing cove, too far away to make out in detail but certainly on their way to it, and they all wore red and grey uniforms.
His duty was to alert Duckworth that his fleet was now under grave threat.
He turned to go—but there was a faint tap of a musket. He looked back: high on the hillside the tell-tale white puff lazily drifted away. Some hawk-eyed individual with a view over the point had seen them.
Kydd snapped, “Back to the boat!” but even as he said it, he saw a craft under sail put about and head their way. It was full of uniformed men and would get to their cutter before they could.
Heart thudding, he looked about desperately. “Follow me!”
He scrambled up the slope, around the side of the hill. After a few minutes they were above the boat and he signalled frantically to them. Saxton caught on and had the cutter under way as the other came around the point.
The officer in command chose to chase the boat instead of landing his soldiers to go after those ashore. They had a chance.
It was brutal going, struggling along the stony hillside, ankles twisting, legs burning with effort.
Then they crashed through thorny scrub, cutlasses swinging, down into a gully, heaving and gasping.
They found themselves on the bare slopes above the little village. It was what Kydd had been hoping to see: beyond the huts, the fleet was anchored majestically in line across his vision.
“We’re safe!” he gasped.
No Turk in his right mind with a boat full of soldiers would come into view of the fleet.
Breathless and hot, they ran on to the jetty and, with perfect timing, Saxton brought the cutter curving in.
“The damned rascals!” roared Duckworth. “They’ve broken the terms
of the cease-fire!”
He paced the cabin and stopped. “They can’t be allowed to get away with it. Flags—orders. To Canopus: ‘Land strong reconnaissance party of marines and report.’”
To Kydd, he said gruffly, “Thank you for bringing this villainy to notice, sir. Leave this to me and get back to your ship. There’ll be hot work to do before long, I believe.”
“Sir?”
“This is the last straw. I’m going against Constantinople as soon as there’s a wind fair for that blasted place.”
“Will Mr Arbuthnot agree, do you think?”
“Ha! Mr Ambassador has just taken ill again and begs to be excused any further involvement. We’re on our own at last, Kydd.”
As soon as he was decently able, Kydd returned to the sanity of L’Aurore. He had done what he could for his missing men. A strong body of marines was going to land on Prota; hopefully, they would sort it out.
Now, however, the last check on Duckworth was gone. What lunatic scheme would he dream up to salvage his reputation?
Shortly after midday signs of battle could be seen arising beyond the hill-crest on Prota.
Kydd guessed they were coming up to the monastery on the other side. It raged on—they must be in a stiff fight. A little later one of the landing boats left the jetty and made for the flagship under a press of sail.
“‘Ships to send reinforcements,’” a signal midshipman reported. “Pennants include ours, sir.”
L’Aurore’s contribution mustered in the waist. Twenty Royal Marines with accoutrements in impeccable order. Kydd went down to inspect them, taking a quivering salute from Lieutenant Clinton. He passed down the two ranks slowly, and at the end turned to him and said loudly, “Take care of these men while you’re on shore, Lieutenant. They’re the finest we have.”
He watched as they landed and formed up on the jetty, heading off smartly in a spirited display of scarlet and white. But it failed to lift his heart. Were they marching to disaster, trusting in their superiors to make winning plans and decisions? In his bones he knew they would fail—and good men would pay with their lives.
From Whitehall’s interference to Duckworth’s irresolution in the face of the ambassador’s conflicting advice, he had seen the all-too-human side of high command.
He chased Dillon out of his cabin and took up his favoured chair by the stern windows.
In the past Renzi had sat in his place on the other side with a quizzical smile as Kydd shared his doubts and hopes.
But now came the dawning realisation that he no longer had need of advice, comforting reassurance, the logical perspective. If he felt the necessity for any of them, he would find it within himself. As was right and proper for a leader of men.
The afternoon wore on with no news, but as the shadows lengthened the boats began returning. One of them L’Aurore’s.
In it, a bandaged figure lay full length. Kydd didn’t need to be told. It was Clinton.
He was hoisted aboard, those near hearing him moan softly at the pain as he was taken below to the surgeon. There were other wounded—and Kydd counted only seventeen in the party.
Later he had the lieutenant brought to the coach and placed in an officer’s cot.
Kydd sat with him but it was well after dark before he came back to consciousness and some time before he could recognise his captain.
“How goes it for you, William?” Kydd asked.
“S-sir, what … am I doing here?”
“Never mind. Ship’s company at their grog, too noisy for a sufferer,” he answered gruffly.
The field guns Kydd had seen landed had been turned on the British and a six-pounder ball impacting near Clinton had driven shards of rock into his body and caused a concussion.
The marine had stood at Kydd’s side in the climactic last days of siege in Buenos Aires and other adventures too numerous to recall. His heart wrung with pity at the thought of the young officer leaving his bones to rot here—and for what grand cause?
“Surgeon thinks you’ve a good chance, William.” It wasn’t quite what had been said.
“My r-report, sir.” The voice was weak and slurred but piteously determined.
“Not now, dear fellow,” Kydd said.
But Clinton was going to do his duty. It came out painfully, with pauses to gather his strength.
The first to land had not known the extent of the enemy infiltration until they had rounded the hill and come under fire from concealed gun emplacements protected by the fortified monastery.
They had held their ground until the reinforcements from the fleet had reached them. Jointly it was decided that the guns were too big a threat to be ignored. Mounted on the crest overlooking the fleet, they could place it under a pitiless onslaught of steady, aimed fire.
The problem was that any advance on the gun-pits would be dominated by musket fire from the loopholes of the monastery. One course would have been to land their own guns for an artillery duel but that would take time.
It had to be a frontal assault with no wavering and this had been bravely accomplished. The monastery was taken, the guns spiked and the enemy in full retreat. But before it had ended Clinton had lost three men killed and much of his detachment wounded.
Then orders had come to return on board.
Without knowledge of events on the island Duckworth had obliged them to break off and leave it to the Turks.
“Thank you for your report, Lieutenant,” Kydd said softly. “You have done your duty most nobly, sir.”
Dawn came, and with it, what Kydd had been most dreading. The wind had veered during the night and now was fitfully blowing from the northeast. A broad reach to Constantinople in one board.
It was fair at last for the bombarding of the ancient city.
Like the tragic conclusion of a Greek drama, each of the main players stepped through their parts to the inevitable climax.
A signal mounted in the flagship’s halliards: “Weigh and proceed as previously ordered.” Obediently the warships of the squadron raised anchor and ensigns rose in the ships as they manoeuvred into line-of-battle.
In the delicate early light, the terrifying majesty of the spectacle was made poignant by the knowledge of what was to come. The Ottomans had broken the cease-fire and must now endure the consequences. That morning there would be scenes of destruction that would resound around the world.
L’Aurore took her position to starboard of the line. With the other frigate, her duty was to keep watch to seaward as the battleships did their work. At least Kydd’s ship would have no direct part in the ruin of the city.
The wind strengthened; sails caught and bellied, speeding the ships on to their destiny. Very soon magnificent buildings, olive groves and the splendour of the imperial palace spread out ahead, firming from a blue haze.
Within the hour they would …
Kydd grabbed a glass.
Stretching all along the seafront were moored warships, large and small, a ringing of the peninsula with a continuous line of guns. Kydd steadied his telescope further in—on the cannon manned and waiting, an unbroken chain of artillery that encircled the capital.
A monstrous gathering of strength, an insuperable barrier that even a battle fleet could not batter down.
They were too late.
Duckworth signalled the fleet to reverse its course in succession. It did so, carefully out of range. The shore guns remained silent.
Another signal—“Wear and advance.”
Tacking and veering in front of Constantinople, the admiral flaunted his might at the Turks in the hope of luring them to sea and a confrontation. Again and again, up and down, but the Turks never stirred from their unassailable positions.
It was useless, humiliating, and could have only one ending. Before the close of the day the British fleet had retreated: spread sail and set course southward for the Dardanelles and the wider world.
As they sailed into the darkness there was little cheer in L’Aurore. It was clear to th
e humblest crew member that the expedition, bigger by far than had taken Cape Town and Buenos Aires, comparable in scale to anything seen in the Mediterranean since Trafalgar, had completely failed.
To Kydd, it now seemed plain that, with their helplessness so vividly demonstrated, French influence could only increase to the point at which Bonaparte might at long last look to bursting out of his European confines.
And there was now no conceivable hope that anything could stop the inevitable slide from influence to power, from there to domination and rule, just as it had in so many countries. Would Bonaparte insist that the next sultan be a brother or cousin, crowned and loyal to France only? He would then have his royal road to India and the world.
It was an utterly depressing thought, made worse by their very helplessness.
That night the gun-room invited him to dinner. He was grateful, for a black mood had clamped in—not only at their dismal failure but at the news that Poulden, Cumby and the midshipmen had not been found in the monastery. He was leaving them behind to their fate in a Turkish prison.
“Cádiz will be a sad let-down after this,” Bowden offered.
“A pox on that,” retorted Curzon. “Any station that offers me a trifle of sport at the Frogs’ expense will do.”
“Afore there’s talk o’ going back,” Redmond, the gunner rumbled, “there’s a little matter should give us pause.”
“What’s that, then?”
“Yez saw how quick-smart your Turk was, gettin’ the defences as they were, in only a few days? Now, if they’s as nimble in the Dardanelles, we’re in for a right mauling as we sails down past them forts.”
“Wasn’t so bad coming up, Thad,” Oakley said. “All a mort pitiful, them Turks as had a try at us.”
“Ah—that’s because they weren’t expectin’. I’ll give youse a guinea to a shilling that they, knowin’ we has to go back the same way, has somethin’ in the way of a farewell salute in mind.”
“How piquant.”
Everyone looked suspiciously at the surgeon Peyton, who rarely spoke at gun-room gatherings.
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